“Situated research is about generating knowledge from a place, a context, and a history—from social relations. It means there are other ways of understanding the world—that there are other ways of knowing outside of a western framework.” (Illustration: Cristina Fraser)
Last November in 2022, researchers from BCNUEJ gathered with climate justice activists from La Casa dels Futurs, a project that aims to create a physical and educational infrastructure to support social and ecological movements that find social solutions to the root causes of climate change. The workshop took place at Can Masdeu, an emblematic building occupied for 21 years that operates as both social centre and housing in the periphery of Barcelona, and where participants discussed avenues for converting the nearby abandoned Hospital Sant Llatzer into a permanent Climate Justice Center and Movement School.
Discussions explored how research–activism alliances, even with its challenges and limitations, can be fruitful for climate justice movements looking to push transformative transitions towards sustainable and just urban futures. For instance, the privileged position of researchers and their potential access to decision-makers can give legitimacy to social movements in their negotiations with official institutions, while research collaborations with social movements can open up caring and intimate spaces outside of the machine of neoliberal academia through which more just research practices can be co-produced.
Within this framework, our lab members discussed the importance of conducting “situated” research, that is, research grounded in a real-world context, deeply rooted in a specific context, and aware of its own biases. The reflections shared during the event were recorded in a series of illustrations by the artist Cristina Fraser.
Read the full essay in English or Spanish, authored by our researchers Austin Matheney, Melissa García-Lamarca, and Amalia Calderón-Argelich with Casa dels Futurs members Nelly Alfandari and Daniel Papillon.
Find all of the illustrations and the full overview of the workshop here.
This blog post incorporates edited exerpts from a piece originally published on Antipode.
